Old DadI used to do alawt of musky fishing. One marriage's worth. Fishing surface lures sometimes I know they will come up and pound it with no intention of eating it. Irritated, territorial, who knows. So I'll give you that ;)

Anyone have a bigger musky than 48" 30# ? And pics or it didn't happen.

That's more than your share of snow and it's only December. Send some snow down here where we need it. Keep the ice, but send the snow. Many cars and trucks heading to Florida drive on the Interstates through Atlanta every day still covered in snow along with road salt stains on their doors.

Old DadYea I bet that carp felt like reeling in a bike after a while hooked through the tail like that. 28 lbs and they start looking like a football don't they? We used to snag hook them for fun in the Crawfish "River". You can cast way across it. Anyway I think the biggest I ever "caught" was maybe 18lbs tops. I remember snagging one, started reeling it in, and I was like "WTF? This thing is hardly even fighting". Then I got it in and saw it was the same exact carp I fought and caught a few minutes ago. Hooked in the same exact place. We got a helluva laugh from that one. That's the good thing about snagging rough fish. They don't really need to be "biting", do they? LOL.

He's also gotten 10 of his previously blocked judical nominees confirmed (while accepting that four won't be.) I'd say that's a pretty good number for him.

Even the tax bill only extends the Bush cuts for two years and brings back the estate tax (though at a reduced level) and in return he got more than a year extension of unemployment benefits (which brings the next vote in-- that's right, 2012, the next election year) and over $60 million in additional stimulus type projects (a.k.a. 'pork') that will result in some more hiring.

And then, yes, there is DADT. Which is actually the direct fulfillment of a promise he made and that Republicans had promised to block.

An-- the Senate will soon be voting on the START treaty and if they pass it then, yes, I would say this was a very good Lame Duck session for him.

PatrickI think anyone with dedication can be a decent musky fishermen, if they put in the long hours. Trout fishing is a whole different animal though. My nephew is a trout guide in Montana. He is in a whole different league than me with a fly rod when he takes me out. The kid can really stick em.

Kris Kristofferson wrote "Me and Bobby McGee" and gave it to Roger Miller, who had a hit with it. Janis Joplin did her own version (which isn't really surprising, given that it's pretty obviously about her). It was one of the last songs she did before she died. Kristofferson didn't know that she did a cover, and heard her version the day after her death.

In Joplin's home state of Texas, there was a band called The 13th Floor Elevators, the first psychedelic rock group.

She actually almost considered joining them, although her manager advised her to go to San Francisco instead. With Roky Erickson's guitar and Janis Joplin's voice, the music of the 1960's might have been very different (just as the country renaissance of the 1970's might have been different if she'd lived).

On Saturday January 1st it will be 65 and sunny with a gentle breeze in Pasadena, but only hot dogs and no brats will be sold at Rose Bowl field. That may be a bad omen for brat eaters from the frozen North.

I would also like to be one of those Irish Dancers with those freaky legs.

But want I really want to be is a dog breeder and dog shower. I would love to go to those shows and be all bitchy and compete against the other fags.

I would be the new girl on the circuit and all the other girls would be saying, "smell you".

My dad has a farm in Lodi and I would like to redo the Barn and live in it with all my rare clumbers. It would be really cool. He said it's all mine if I want to but I don't know what my Indian UK husband will do. I think he would hate it here. It's fucking cold, the grocery stores suck and the gyms are horrible.

Otherwise, we are heading back to Boston or Chicago in 8 months when his 1 year has expired and he can come back to the states. He's in Chennai now on business.

Out at 9:15 tonight here in West Texas in a short-sleeved shirt, with the temperature still in the low 60s after the second straight day of a high of 83 degrees. But at least it's supposed to be below freezing Christmas morning.

I blame seemingly arbitrary movements of the winter jet stream over the Rocky Mountains (which is not as trendy as blaming climate change, but more accurate), since the jet appears to have bedded down for the night someplace around Albuquerque, along with the cold front that was supposed to arrive on Wednesday, but now isn't.

Garage: I won 25 bucks in the Genesse beer fishing contest in August of 1968. Skinny fish but over thirty inches. I needed the money. Moved back south after that and have never caught a musky since. It tasted of lake grass and mud.

Peter,Thanks. The future for young people seems uncertain as it was in the 1930s. So the standard approach to college seems questionable to me. yet I don't know what to tell him. I feel fairly useless at the moment.

My grandfather had to drop out of college in 1931 and became a low level grunt at a newspaper. His life turned out rather well, though. Hope is the thing with feathers.

Pogo, my daughter has been accepted to UofM, but has heard nothing back from UW. Yesterday she finished her application to school #7. I hope your boy finds a place that suits him and challenges him and makes him happy.

It's unnerving to think how much of their future path rests on where they go to school, but I figure there's not much to do but take a deep breath and watch them go.

Penny, what makes you think that a year of European hostels is in the cards? And why pair that with community college in your snarky response? Are the two somehow equivalent in your fevered imagination?

Sending one's child to Europe or community college after high school is a clear mark of the elite, eh?

WV: oxhinges.

Might replace bullshit in my vocabulary. It has a good, woody quality to it.